At 8:38 AM +0000 2/4/10, Howard wrote:
Which all goes to show that opinions about photographs are all very
personal. What one person likes....
I don't like Cartier-Bresson, nor Ansel Adams! Am I alone?
No. But you're probably in a pretty lonely place!
The interesting thing about that Flickr page is that the commenters
don't seem to have any thing to say except, sycophantically, "oh yes,
wise one, the photographs you've selected this week are indeed
inspiring."
Inspiring is not an adjective I'd use for those images - they don't
inspire me to do much except go hunt for someone who paints on
velvet. And, unlike the work of Adams and Cartier-Bresson, when I
look at the gallery, no one image jumps out at me and sticks in my
memory.
Either because we're so educated about the history and technique of
photography, or because we've simply been exposed to so much, we're
no longer impressed with yet another gritty face, especially when
we've stared at Steve McCurry's Afghan girl and Dorothea Lange's
Migrant Mother for a great deal of our education.
My personal opinion is that, in the case of McCurry and
Cartier-Bresson, some things are great because they're the first.
Steve's image turns out to be formulaic, if you go and track down
more of his work.
And here's the difference: Cartier-Bresson's isn't.
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races
http://www.landsedgephoto.com
http://e-and-s.instaproofs.com/
